Burst Zoroark
Ability:
Illusion ->
Illusion (yes I'm keeping it. it's Zoroark. .w.)Primary Type:
DarkBase Stats:
HP: 60 ->
80 (+20)Attack: 105 ->
125 (+20)Defense: 60Sp. Atk: 120 ->
100 (-20)Sp. Def: 60Speed: 105 ->
85 (-20)(510 BST)Upgraded Move:
Night Daze - Dark / Special - 70 BP / 100% acc / 10 (16) PP(The user looses a pitch-black shock wave at the target to inflict damage. The user can't be locked into this move, and this move can't be disabled.)
Hello again!
I have to rep Zoroark, and that means it's weird gimmick time, so...!
Basically uh, Night Daze (and only Night Daze) completely ignores and bypasses the limitations of Choice items - a Choice item will never lock you into Night Daze, but locking into another move will also never prevent you from using Night Daze.
(it also stops stuff like Encore and Disable as written, but those interactions are way less relevant; the Choice interaction is the main point)
For instance, say you're running Scarf Zoroark, and you select Focus Blast on your first turn. You would normally only be able to use Focus Blast from then on, but Burst Zoroark can still pick freely between Focus Blast and Night Daze for as long as it stays around - it's only locked out of moves that are neither Focus Blast nor Night Daze.
Even better: if you select Night Daze
before you lock into any other move, you still have the freedom to commit to
any of your other three moves afterwards. For instance, if you use Scarf Night Daze turn one, it's as if you haven't locked into a move yet at all for the purposes of a Choice item, so you can still pull out a still pull out a Scarf U-turn on the following turn!
Essentially, your Choice item is limiting you to two moves instead of one; you just always need one of them to be Night Daze, which is nice because Dark is really spammable and it's your STAB.
Mostly, I wanted to play with Choice items somehow because Zoroark is already often Trick + Specs and Scarf user in BW UU and I think that's a role that interacts with Illusion in cool ways! It should feel authentic to Zoroark, which is the goal because Zoroark is already awesome.
There are a lot of ways to use this, so I want to go over a couple of them!
- A big one is obviously
Trick, which Zoroark is known for running already. Normally, Trick + Choice sets are obviously required to use Trick on their very first turn on the field or not at all; you can't attack, see what comes in and
then pull out Trick, you know? but this sub can bypass that restriction, because it can attack with Night Daze without closing off the option of a Trick on turn two, or turn three, or whenever it feels ready for it.- You wouldn't normally see
Nasty Plot or
Calm Mind on Choiced sets at all, because for most Pokémon, locking into setup also means locking yourself
out of... y'know... special moves... that can use the boost. P: but Zoroark can get around that, too! It can use a setup move on its first turn and then try to go on a sweep with Night Daze, which is
big when you realize just how fast it is with a Scarf
(it can creep Pokémon as fast as base 151...! so, uh, anything unboosted except Ninjask!).Importantly, once you've used a setup move, your opponent can rest assured that you have absolutely no coverage, because Zoroark can only click Nasty Plot and +2 Night Daze from then on... but they still have to play cautiously
until you do that, so you can try to use it cleverly by opening with Night Daze and seeing how your opponent reacts to Zoroark, then decide if you're actually ready to set up or if you'd rather hit them with a Focus Blast or Flamethrower and wait to set up until later.- Zoroark's special movepool is better in some ways (and Night Daze itself is a special move, so you'll definitely want some SpA investment if you're using Burst Zoroark at all!), but Burst Zoroark now has less Special Attack and more Attack, so it should have a pretty easy time going mixed if it wants.First of all,
U-turn is always a good option for Choice sets, and that can definitely benefit from the higher Attack. You can use Scarf Night Daze as many times as you want and still have the option to just pivot out!Moreover, this makes it very feasible to slot a move like
Sucker Punch or
Pursuit on your set if you want, while still falling back on Night Daze so you aren't immediately forced out after using it once.You could still use a Scarf set with any of these, and that's definitely more realistic, but I'm... uh, curious to see if people
might occasionally be able to pull off something wacky like Band Sucker Punch / Night Daze / Trick / filler? Night Daze isn't going to be the
strongest on a set like that, but Band Sucker Punch off of base 125 Attack is
incredibly hard-hitting as priority goes - it just happens that Zoroark is basically the only thing that can actually
get a Choice Band boost on it and not end up ridiculously exploitable.Combine that with the fact that any Choice item you run can be pawned off in the middle of the game so you don't need to stress too much about all of your moves getting the boost, and maybe it can work...!
Probably the most
consistent and practical example of a set you might run is a Scarf set with Nasty Plot / Night Daze / Focus Blast or Flamethrower / Trick, paired with a Trainer who gives you either
Fighting or
Fire depending on your secondary STAB.
In other situations, I could kinda see
Bug if you just want to make Scarf U-turn hit as hard as you can? or something more defensively inclined, like
Steel or a type with great immunities like
Ground or
Ghost, even if you aren't going to want a STAB of those types - remember,
this still has Illusion, so you should keep in mind ways to make the most of that and catch your opponent off guard!!
Oh! and one more thing I nearly forgot to mention: since using Burst restores your Pokémon's HP all the way to full, I think it will a bit easier to create a convincing Illusion multiple times in a game.
Normally, if Zoroark takes any damage at all, Illusion is pretty much undermined for the rest of game in almost all situations. In general, it's not an Ability you typically get to use many times in a game, but an Ability that you're supposed to use basically once and just try to get as much mileage out of the free turns as you can. Using Zoroark as your Burst lets it "reset" its Illusion and get back to sneaking in free turns until it takes damage again; it's a
pretty minor benefit, but with as rewarding as Illusion can already be when it's basically single-use, I think it's worth noting all the same!
(The reverse is true as well - it's rare that you can convincingly copy another Pokémon that's already taken damage, so Illusion is pretty reliant on as much of your team as possible being at full HP. If you're running Zoroark on your team for its Burst but don't want to use Burst every game, this benefit of the mechanic can still make its life just a little easier. Again, really small benefit, but it makes me really like the idea of getting people to run Zoroark in this mod, okay!!!
I just like Zoroark--)